


Rite of Passage

by Tabby_Shieldmaiden



Category: Skylanders (Video Games)
Genre: Backstory, Dreadwalker lore, Gen, Screen Reader Friendly, Teenagers, sweet sixteenth birthday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 06:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30118791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabby_Shieldmaiden/pseuds/Tabby_Shieldmaiden
Summary: Dreadwalkers all got a special present when they turn sixteen. And Nightfall wanted a watercraft to explore the ocean to call her own.
Relationships: Nightfall & OC (Skylanders)
Kudos: 3





	Rite of Passage

**Author's Note:**

> Yo, I decided that I had new headcanons for the Dreadwalkers. I had time to myself to just stay in my apartment without going out for school lately, and all I had been doing was reading. I figured, since Dreadwalkers also stay up in a tower all the time and can only go out with a mask, they'd likely end up doing the same. Hence, dreadwalkers are now a culture of scholars and possibly bread bakers.

Nightfall wished she brought a book with her. She had been seated outside the Eldest’s office for at least half an hour now, and she was beginning to grow rather bored with the waiting. 

She sat on a tiny wooden bench in a brightly lit hallway. It was a bit too bright in her opinion, but for now she could tolerate it. At least it was quiet, what usually sets her off and gets on her nerves was noise. She could deal with a bit of overbearing brightness, as long as everything else was peaceful. It wasn’t so bad if she could find a way to distract herself. And since she didn’t bring something to keep herself entertained, she’d been distracting herself just by looking around and taking note of her surroundings. That was a crucially important thing if one wanted to be an explorer: one needed to be observant to what was around them.

Under her feet, the threadbare carpet looked gray, but according to her parents it used to be blue. Now due to years of usage, the colour had faded along with the once-plush texture. The walls were a different story - they had all just been painted recently. They were all full of cracks and peeling paint previously. That was why some of the other dreadwalkers at Fogshadow decided to fix it up. They all decided to paint the walls a fresh green, as opposed to the previous off-white. 

Nightfall preferred the new colour. In her opinion, it was much easier on the eyes than the white. The one downside was that now, if she was stuck waiting to enter the Eldest’s office, she couldn’t count the cracks on the wall to pass the time like she used to.

Finally, the doors opened, and one of Nightfall’s peers (whose name escaped her) walked out. Most likely, it was going to be his sixteenth birthday soon too. That was the reason why  _ she _ was called into the office, after all. 

Every single dreadwalker’s sixteenth birthday was an important date. They, along with their closest family and friends would get a holiday from most of the work the community did together. The only thing they really needed to do was prepare a feast. They would split up the work needed to prepare the food between each other, and then they would all get together to eat that delicious feast during the evening. And that was all fun and good. But the aspect of the celebration Nightfall personally looked forward to the most, was that each and every dreadwalker would get to ask the Eldest for a personalised birthday present when they turned sixteen.

That fact alone made it probably the most anticipated birthday any dreadwalker could experience. The Eldest of the tribe often got elected for a variety of reasons. Leadership skills, compassion towards all living things, the ability to pop popcorn without burning a single kernel. But one thing that was usually on dreadwalker’s minds was their generosity, as well as their capability and skill at acquiring presents. And fortunately for her, Nightfall knew the current Eldest was a genius at calling for favours and getting great gifts.

That was good, because she had quite the request for her. She wasn’t even sure if she’d actually get her request, but it was worth a shot. 

“Next,” said a voice from within the office. And Nightfall picked herself off the bench and walked into the office. 

The place was a lot more well put together than the hall. Walls painted a brilliant sky blue. Carpet a lush green, and not threadbare in the slightest. But she supposed the biggest difference was the furnishings of the office versus the furnishing outside. Outside, the hallways were mostly empty. Except for the bench and maybe a lone plant tucked away in the corner. The tribe had been debating over what paintings they wanted hung up on the walls for ages, but so far no one could agree because no one could decide which paintings reflected everyone in the tribe’s tastes. But since the office only needed to reflect the tastes of the current Eldest, the furnishing resulted in a place with far more personality.

Curtains were silk, a sweet sea green colour. Fogshadow didn’t produce its own silk, so Nightfall knew she had to have imported it from someplace far away. The plants were unusual to Nightfall, because they were cacti. She remembered the day when they were shipped in. There were so many complications which came from shipping plants grown in the desert out to a tower in the middle of the ocean. And an ocean where the waters were toxic to most living beings at that. But the Eldest was so determined to get them, that she took the risk anyways. 

Most of the books filling the shelves were atlases, maps, books about the rest of Skylands. A few were about the history of Fogshadow and of dreadwalkers, but they were only the most well-known texts. The basic stuff, the books everyone already read. All the other books talked about things about the world beyond Fogshadow.

Nightfall liked this Eldest for her worldliness. She had only known two Eldests in her lifetime, and the previous one had been far more reluctant to learn about what existed outside the tower. Far more prideful about dreadwalkers, not as curious about what existed outside. Under the current Eldest however, more books about cultures outside of their tribe got spotlighted and even introduced into the library. Nightfall appreciated that.

“Good afternoon, Nightfall,” greeted the Eldest from behind her desk. Her long tendrils were curled around her dark, wrinkled face, framing it in the shape of a heart. “Come on in, have a seat. We have something quite important to discuss.”

Quietly, Nightfall sat opposite her in a comfortable blue chair. The Eldest smiled, “So, you’ll be sixteen in a month,” she said. Voice calm as a lullaby.

Nightfall nodded. “I would be.”

“And as you know, in our culture, it is customary for me, as the Eldest, to give you some sort of special gift to commemorate this special occasion.” Nightfall nodded. She knew why the Eldest repeated these things to others. It was just in case they had been too busy to read the customs of the culture. But she wished she would hurry up and ask her what she wanted already! She was eager to share!

“Have you given any thought as to what you want?” She asked. 

“I have,” she replied, nodding her head once.

“Excellent,” said the Eldest. “And now, what is it that you want? A book of some sort? Or maybe an instrument?”

“With all due respect, Madam Eldest,” said Nightfall, raising her hand up slightly so that she may have an opportunity to speak. “What I really want for my sixteenth birthday is some sort of vehicle that I could use to explore the outside world.”

* * *

The dreadwalkers of Fogshadow were a culture of scholars. Of course they had to be. With all the time they spent hiding away in the tower, separate from the outside world, they needed to find something to entertain themselves. They separated work between all of them. Everyone worked as much as they could and did what they could for each other. And in the spare time they had, they all were encouraged to read. Nightfall was one of those big readers. And some of her favourite books were books talking about what was outside the tower. 

When Nightfall was younger, she would pour over maps, diary entries, even some fiction work all about other inhabitants of Skylands who weren’t her. She read non-fiction about science, history, geography, her favourite topic of all being marine biology. It was all out of a thirst for knowledge. She simply had to know anything and everything about what was out there. Nightfall knew quite a bit about Fogshadow and dreadwalkers too. But her real passion was simply exploring what was  _ out there _ .

Her parents have always described her as curious. Inquisitive. She asked difficult questions simply because she needed to know things. And she often asked why she couldn’t explore the outside world. 

“The waters outside are very toxic,” said her Dad when she was young, and had first asked the question. “If you ever want to explore what’s out there, you’re going to need some sort of special equipment to protect you. Like… I don’t know. I suppose some sort of special vehicle.”

His words struck a chord with her. Ever since that day, she pictured herself safely nested away in a vehicle of some sort, nevertheless still fully immersing herself in the sights and sounds of the outside world. It seemed like a far off dream when she was a kid. But as she grew older, and became more well-read, that dream slowly became more of a reality.

She kept up with modern scientific developments. Specifically, developments around vehicles. Growing up, there were already vehicles designed for travelling through the waters which surrounded Fogshadow. It was how their ancestors even arrived out in the middle of this place, it was how they managed to maintain trade with some relatively nearby colonies. But all those vehicles had been big. They could fit a whole crew in them, plus the science showed that due to the size it actually assisted in insulating them from the toxins. 

But things were changing. As she kept up with the science, she discovered that they were developing smaller pods that individuals could travel around in. Additionally, she began reading deeper into dreadwalker history, Fogshadow’s history in particular. She scouted through archives of records, looking around for things relevant to her interests. Sure enough, she found out that there had been explorers and adventurers who had come out of their little tribe up in Fogshadow. They weren’t well known names. Dreadwalkers here rarely talked about them. But they did exist, and that was enough for Nightfall. She read up as much as she could about them. Studying their lives, their experiences, trying to see where they ultimately ended up in life. And the more she read about them, what they said, what motivated them to try and leave the outside world, the less alone she felt.

But all that was a lot to explain. Especially when one was seated right across from an Eldest, and had just given her a relatively big request. The Eldest raised her brows, and arced her hands under her head. “Really?” She said, curious. “Why do you want that? I thought you would have requested some sort of book.” Dreadwalkers were taught from young to love books. It was the best way of staving off boredom while living in a tower isolated from anything else for miles.

“I just want to go out and explore,” answered Nightfall, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s surely something I can do. I know others have gone out and explored the depths before me, even back before they had any modern technology to help them out.” 

She had the names permanently etched in her heart. Tenebrous, the first recorded dreadwalker from her tribe to venture outside of Fogshadow, and the first to inspire all that would come after him. Benight, who not only made it through the ocean, but recorded so much about the wildlife outside that it changed the way marine biology textbooks were written. Vespertine, a scientist and explorer, whose work on her own personal vehicle contributed to technology currently in use nowadays. Mostly on vehicles used to ship things from the outside world into Fogshadow.

All these dreadwalkers had made such important contributions to the culture of Fogshadow, it was a shame that more about them was not common knowledge.

The Eldest nodded patiently. “Yes, that is true. There were indeed several who did leave this tribe to go out and explore before you did.” Nightfall nodded, crossed her legs in the other direction, fidgeted. 

“But, may I ask,” continued the Eldest. “Why then? Why would you want to go out and take the risk of exploration, if others have already written their observations about the outside world down.”

She got up from her seat, and began walking around the room. Nightfall followed her with her eyes, watching the grand old lady strut around her office. “It’s much safer to experience things from the comfort of the tower. There’s no risk of getting poisoned, eaten or hurt by anything outside. That was, after all, why our ancestors decided to come here and hide away in this tower in the first place.” She walked over to a particularly tall shelf, and reached for a thick book with yellowed pages. “Like, look over here. This is a map book of some of the most unique locations in Skylands. Some of these locations are dreadfully dangerous for us to go, so why should we? Especially when the information was already neatly recorded down for us to all read about.”

Nightfall paused for a bit. She had anticipated needing to defend her choice of gift, but she needed a couple of seconds to sort through her thoughts, present them as a coherent argument. “It’s… it’s not just about seeing what other people don’t know, Ma’am.” Another pause. Urgh, she knew she had the words in her, but how would she get those words out? Especially in a way which would be convincing to her.

Her parents were much easier to convince. Partially because they were both used to her usual more straightforward, somewhat blunt way of speaking. And therefore, it was a lot easier to explain to them why she wanted to specifically go out and see the things the rest of Skylands had to offer, instead of merely reading about it. But this was the Eldest. One needed to be polite when talking to the Eldest. Social skills had never come naturally to her. What even were the right words to use?

Still, she had to try. With a deep breath, she faced the Eldest and began formulating her argument. All she needed to do was think about the words, and let them fall out. “It’s like… it’s not just about reading and acquiring new knowledge. I could very easily acquire new knowledge from reading, that’s true. But… it isn’t always about just the  _ knowledge _ , but also the  _ experience _ .”

The Eldest gave her a curious look, and slotted the book back into the shelf. “Go on,” she continued. That was one thing she really liked about the current Eldest. She was willing to listen to others with differing opinions. Especially if the other party’s point was presented in a way which she found interesting. 

Nightfall carried on talking. “It’s like… how you have all these cacti here.” She pointed to the plants on the Eldest’s desk. “These things took a ton of effort to bring here, right?”

The Eldest nodded. “They did indeed.”

“But, why did you want to ship them over, when you could appreciate these in pictures in books?” Continued Nightfall. “Why put in all that effort, just for a handful of plants to be in the same room as you?”

The Eldest returned back to her seat, so that they were once again looking at each other face to face. This time, however, Nightfall noticed that she had on a smile. There was a moment of silence, and then the Eldest spoke up again. “I’ll be sure to think about your request. You may leave now.”

As Nightfall left the room, walked across the hallway again, all she could think about was the Eldest’s smile. It wasn’t a wide one, toothy, with her grinning ear to ear. Rather, it was subtle. Only to be seen if one carefully watched the eyes of someone. A mouth smile was easy to fake, but an eye smile could only be genuine. 

She took that to be a good sign. At least, not a bad one.

* * *

A month passed, and the day of her birthday finally came. She woke up to her parents cheerfully wishing her well on this day. According to dreadwalker tradition, it was an important day because it marked the beginning of a dreadwalker’s time to individuate. “From this day forward,” said her mother to her, as she handed her a bagel for breakfast, “you are now officially your own woman.”   


“I do hope that you’d continue to take some of your mother and I’s advice though,” said her father. “It never hurts to ask someone older and wiser than you questions when you’re lost.”

Nightfall supposed there wasn’t. Though she hoped they wouldn’t give out advice she didn’t need. They had a tendency to do that. She would start talking about some going ons in her life, and they’d immediately start giving her advice on how to deal with it. She waited for them to finish and listened, because she knew if she interrupted there was a higher risk of the conversation escalating into a fight. As it was, it was an annoying part of her everyday existence. Hopefully it would be something that would stop once she truly became a proper adult.

The first thing a dreadwalker did on their sixteenth birthday was head down to have a breakfast specially prepared for them by friends and family. Nightfall’s family mixed up some of her favourite fruits and cereals together, just for her. She could have sworn there was even a little honey mixed into the meal too. Honey was a rare treat. It wasn’t to the taste of the typical dreadwalker palette, but Nightfall liked it enough. To the point where if she ever needed to share an interesting fact about herself, one of her fallbacks was the fact that she liked honey.

That was rather touching, she thought. Including that little extra special something in her meal, and all just for her. 

After breakfast, she met up with a couple of her friends. Well, at least they were the closest friends she had. She wasn’t all ‘buddy buddy’ with them, and in all honesty they were all closer friends with each other than they were close friends with her. But they were more or less her ‘social circle’, as in the people her age which she spent the most time around. So she invited them to partake in her birthday activities. 

It wouldn’t be fair for her family alone to be preparing her birthday feast, after all. Having multiple hands on deck would get the job done faster, and would result in far less work.

She assigned her friends to knead dough for the bread. Her family and her would be busy peeling fruits and vegetables. During that time, they managed to chat a little more. They told some jokes, exchanged anecdotes from their lives, and in all honesty it was the most at peace with everything Nightfall had felt in a while.

She would only get her present at lunch. And she was honestly quite excited for it. She was confident that she would get something to the effect of what she asked for, but she wasn’t quite sure what the present would look like exactly. There was so much out there, and she was aching to see and feel and experience it all.

For the time being though, it was satisfying just talking with her family. She liked keeping her hands busy while she talked, because of what it meant. It meant she didn’t have to focus so much energy on her body language, maintaining eye contact, all that jazz. All she had to do was focus on the task at hand, and what she wanted to say. And that, she found, made communicating a lot easier.

It didn’t take too long to cut enough produce, because her party was a lot smaller than the average dreadwalker’s. Soon, her peers were done kneading the dough too. So they kept away the pre-prepared ingredients, and headed down to have lunch in the main hall.

Nightfall ate fast. Because the faster she ate, the quicker the time would come for her to check out her new present. Once she cleaned her plate, she asked her parents if they knew where the Eldest had stored her present. Usually, the Eldest told the caretakers about it first, and it would be up to them to give their child their gift.

“It’s in storeroom B,” told her father, “the one on the thirty-second floor.”

Storeroom B… well, that wasn’t encouraging.

“Wash your own plate first, okay. Then go and check it out,” said her mother. Nightfall nodded, and after soaping, rinsing and drying, she took off. 

Once outside the cafeteria, she pushed herself off the ground and dashed off on her hair. Now that those long tentacles had grown long enough to reach the floor, she was rather fond of travelling around like that. It made walking a lot more efficient, because she found that she could generally move faster like this. And anyways, it was kind of fun. Especially since she was new to it and it was still kind of novel to her. But eventually, she reached the stairs, and she had to get onto the ground again. Her parents always advised her against trying to walk with her hair on the stairs, because it was unsafe. Especially for young dreadwalkers whose hair had just grown long enough to reach the ground. And maybe someday she’ll try it out herself to see if there was a way to do it safely. But that day was not today. And on her special day, she thought it would be for the best if she tried to stay out of harm’s way.

It was a long climb up the stairs, but she didn’t tire herself out. A number of the dreadwalkers of Fogshadow were used to this type of activity in their daily lives. Some chose or needed to use the elevators, for sure, but others frequently chose to take the stairs. In Nightfall’s case, she thought it was a good way to squeeze in some exercise in her day, and she liked to keep active. She walked up the stairs leisurely. Within fifteen minutes, she climbed up all the way to the thirty-second floor.

She got back on her hair once she was back on level ground. From there, she pushed forward, onto storeroom B. It was a small storeroom; one of the smallest of the storerooms on the thirty-second floor. Too small for any sort of watercraft, unless it was  _ really _ tiny.

Maybe the Eldest did just give up and get her a book? While the technology for watercraft was improving every day, was it possible for watercraft to be that small in the present? Probably a cynical perspective, but that probably wouldn’t happen, not in her lifetime at least. She’d been keeping tabs on how the tech advanced, and watercraft small enough to fit into storeroom B sounded something only attainable in the far future. And even then, it would be quite expensive for a while.

She looked at the signs above the doors. Storeroom G, storeroom F, storeroom E… All of them bigger storerooms than storeroom B. She knew that from experience, she’d been in most of these storerooms in the past. 

Finally, she made it to storeroom B. And at this point she was really expecting that there was a book behind the door. Hopefully a good one. From the quick glance at the shelves in the Eldest’s office, she seemed to have an interest in things Nightfall found fascinating too. She was willing to settle for another book about maps.

But then she opened the door, and she gasped, her eyes widening in surprise.

There were a variety of metal parts laying there on the floor. Big sheets of metal, but also a motor, as well as various other bits and bobs that Nightfall didn’t quite recognise. Right in front of them were several books about engineering, watercraft construction, blueprint collections. When Nightfall went to pick up that stack of books, she spotted a little note written on a page torn out of a spiral notebook taped on top of them.

She peeled the piece of paper off the books, and skimmed through it. It read:

_ Dear Nightfall,  
_ _ As it turns out, they don’t really sell watercraft suited for our waters in junior sizes. Well, that was a shame. I suppose I could have hunted around for an engineer willing to design something special, but that would have taken too much time. I would have missed your birthday. _

_ But I didn’t want to just give you nothing for your birthday, or give you something you wouldn’t have wanted at all. That wouldn’t be fair to you. So I tried my best to gather all the necessary parts needed to construct a watercraft of your own. I believe that you’re smart enough to figure it out and build it yourself. And if you ever need anything else to construct this, you can always talk to me, and I’ll try to see what I can do. _

_ Happy birthday,  
_ _ The Eldest of Fogshadow Tower _

Nightfall read the note once, twice, and then folded it and slotted it between one of the new books she just got. She then turned around, and walked out of the room. A small smile on her face, a small skip in her step.

In all honesty, she was pretty satisfied just to get the parts. Especially since she expected much less. It was, admittedly, a bad habit. People did say that she tended to be unnecessarily jaded for someone her age. But she now had the parts, she had the books needed to teach her everything she needed to know. She could build up her own vehicle herself if she wanted. Because she knew she always had the most important thing needed for this type of project: she had the determination to see the project through. 

**Author's Note:**

> Amazing how I finally decided to write for Skylanders again. I just keep coming back here when I'm uninspired huh? Even as I try to branch out into other fandoms.


End file.
